[leslymill]

Originally Posted by teeituptom

but what are real issues to some, arent a thing to others

Especially if they believe in the "Village" of the damned, eat children, wipe their mouths of the blood, onto their sleeves, and insist they have done nothing wrong.

[Yosemite, RN]

The ANA collects dues. Lobby? Yeah, right... for their masters, hospital organizations.

The ANA, like so many RN's who go into mid to upper management of any kind, sell out the staff/floor nurses, the patients, the support staff, the families and watch out for themselves, their jobs and use phoney "nurse speak" language to paint a cheery picture of the status of U.S. healthcare, what they are doing for us.

While, no doubt, at their onset, the goals were admirable and lofty, the power, egos and the evil side of capitalism have turned them to the "dark side."

[28wkpreemieRN]

If the ANA were serious about representing the average nurse, it would be a lot cheaper to join! I know they don't have any affect on my day to day practice

[allaboutthefamily]

"The American Nurses Association (ANA) is responsible for defining the scope and standards of generic nursing practice. In 1991, ANA revised the standards of clinical nursing practice, broadening professional role expectations. This document builds on those basic standards to delineate the scope and standards of clinical practice in correctional facilities. The revised specialty standards also incorporate information from prior correctional health nursing standards."..from pen state website.

The ANA actually does have a large impact upon your practice. They write standards of practice that we can all be held accountable for in addition to those presented by the state BON. In a court of law you can be held accountable for many external standards of care, many of which you may have never read.

This being said, they shouldnt need millions of dollars a year to do so. They dont do much (relatively speaking) on the political front, and it is generally an orginazation of little power that is heavily influenced by those outside of nursing (hospitals, etc.). It can be said that the force the ANA exherts is less than those being exherted back upon it. And the worst part is that this "force" is not coming from nurses. I joined the Student ANA at my college and quit after the first meeting. Thier whole drive seemed to be to get more people to sign up and attend national student ANA conventions and pat each other on the back. The whole thing reminded my of some kind of odd fundraising chocolate bar sale. They had little knowledge of politics and the process of changing legislation through lobbying, and did not seem to care. I was only paying 30-40 bucks (per year) but they would have to make some big changes to get me to pay 200 dollars.